Greenstone, Nehlen launch quick marketing biz

Ron Greenstone and Chris Nehlen, marketing and advertising executives who’ve done work for many of the region’s and nation’s best known brands, have launched a new firm focusing on companies with roughly 50 to 100 employees.

But they aren’t focusing on finding clients that they’ll work with for many years. Instead, they’re focusing on what they call Mkt2 or “marketing to the power of two,” developing new messages and campaigns that can make a difference more rapidly.

Greenstone, who helped lead Greenstone/Rabasca and Greenstone/Roberts, teamed with Nehlen, one of the leaders of Welch, Nehlen, Groome, to create Greenstone & Nehlen.

The two, together and then at separate firms, helped lead agencies of record for many well known companies in a wide range of industries.

Greenstone helped grow his firm to $100 million in revenues and 150 employees, stretching from Long Island to Florida, while helping them grow from small businesses to some of the region’s biggest companies.

He worked with Twinlabs for 12 years, Standard Microsystems for 22, Avis for 25 and Astoria Federal Savings for 18, as each expanded. He also did work with companies such as Royal Caribbean and Domino, the sugar brand.

Greenstone and his partners sold their agency to St. Louis-based Kupper Parker Communications in 2000 and he began consulting.

He this year reunited with Nehlen, who had been his creative director at Greenstone/Rabasca before co-founding his own firm (Welch Nehlen Groome) and Pica9 and then selling his shares in 2006.

“Chris and I got together,” Greenstone told LIBN. “We said, ‘Let’s take the techniques we learned from all those years and had success.’”

While advertising, branding and marketing can take a long time, the two said they’re focusing on shorter term assignments.

They meet with companies and organizations, hone the message and develop a campaign whether print, broadcast, social media, Web, outdoor advertising or all of the above.

“All the years we’ve been in business and the clients we’ve handled,” Nehlen, who is also an adjunct professor at Farmingdale State College, said. “Because of that, we’re able to put together a marketing strategy quickly, effectively and successfully.”

While times have changed and social media has risen, the two marketing executives said some things remain the same.

“The idea is whatever is best to reach the audience, whatever they’re reading, watching, listening to,” Greenstone said. “That’s what we do. “

The two described a process that begins with, if not an advertising audit, at least a reappraisal of what a company wants to say: what differentiates it and what the marketing message is and could be.

“We talk to them,” Greenstone said. “We look at what message should be said to the target audience.”

He said the idea is to do this on a “low-cost, consulting retainer basis” without a lot of overhead for their firm, while relying, at least in part, on contacts they’ve made over the years.

“We’re not looking to make money on ads or production,” Greenstone said. “We’re looking to help companies with our brains. We’re not looking to do Avis. We’re looking to do the company that wants to be Avis.”

Nehlen serves as creative director, while Greenstone is CEO, although the firm is based on collaboration as well as tapping people they’ve worked with over the years.

Greenstone in 1972 founded Greenstone Advertising, which became Greenstone/Rabasca until 1989 and then Greenstone/Roberts until 2000 when it was sold to Kupper Parker.

“Because of our experience, we have a tremendous amount of talent at our fingertips,” Nehlen said. “We can find the right people for the right client. “

The new firm marks a reunion for the two who, they both say, have worked well as a team. “We think alike,” Nehlen said before Greenstone added, “We’ve worked together.”

“We even competed against each other, always in a respectful manner,” Nehlen said, although he added that he had many clients in Silicon Valley in California.

Although the two grew their agencies into large Long Island presences, with clients here and beyond, they both say they want to lead a smaller agency with smaller clients.

They want to serve up to 25 or so small and mid-sized firms by helping them develop and execute campaigns for six months to a year.

“First, there’s the message, then the target audience, then the delivery of the message,” Greenstone said. “It could be through print, social media, Internet, broadcast. The delivery could be an airplane going over Jones Beach with the message.”

Why can they help companies quickly, as opposed to requiring time to come up with a message before going to market?

“My experience,” Greenstone said. “I know the problem right away. We can go into a client quicker and better, we think, than anybody else and help a client grow. We think of it as marketing at the speed of success.”